nk or say, I shall never forget what you
have done, and I shall always be grateful for it." She launched these
words fiercely at him, as if they were a form of defiance, and then
whirled away, and was quickly lost to sight again.

XXIII.

That evening Adeline said to her sister, at the end of the meagre dinner
they allowed themselves in these days, "Elbridge says the hay is giving
out, and we have got to do something about those horses that are eating
their heads off in the barn. And the cows: there's hardly any feed for
them."

"We must take some of the money and buy feed," said Suzette, passively.
Adeline saw by her eyes that she had been crying; she did not ask her
why; each knew why the other cried.

"I'm afraid to," said the elder sister. "It's going so fast, as it is,
that I don't know what we shall do pretty soon. I think we ought to sell
some of the cattle."

"We can't. We don't know whether they're ours."

"Not ours?"

"They may belong to the creditors. We must wait till the trial is over."

Adeline made no answer. They had disputed enough about that trial, which
they understood so little. Adeline had always believed they ought to
speak to a lawyer about it; but Suzette had not been willing. Even when
a man came that morning with a paper which he said was an attachment,
and left it with them, they had not agreed to ask advice. For one thing,
they did not know whom to ask. Northwick had a lawyer in Boston; but
they had been left to the ignorance in which most women live concerning
such matters, and they did not know his name.

Now Adeline resolved to act upon a plan of her own that she had kept
from Suzette because she thought Suzette would not like it. Her sister
went to her room after dinner, and then Adeline put on her things and
let herself softly out into the night. She took that paper the man had
left, and she took the deeds of the property which her father had given
her soon after her mother died, while Sue was a little girl. He said
that the deeds were recorded, and that she could keep them safely
enough, and she had kept them ever since in the box where her old laces
were, and her mother's watch, that had never been wound up since her
death.

Adeline was not afraid of the dark on the road or in the lonely
village-streets; but when she rang at the lawyer Putney's door, her
heart beat so with fright that it seemed as if it must jump out of her
mouth. She came to him because she had al